Lamb and onions

So it's mid-March 2018 and it is snowing again.  The outlook for the weekend is bitterly cold with snow showers. Ideal weather to slow cook, and a great excuse for meat, onions and wine, the basis for this easy to prepare meal.

There may look like an awful lot of onions in this recipe but trust the amount. The onions cook down in the wine, imparting their sweet flavour to the sauce. Half and finely slice them.

Make sure your half leg of lamb will fit in your pot lying down - I had to take a cleaver to the end of mine to get it to fit! Pat dry, season well, then brown on all sides. Remove to a plate.

Fry the onions in the lamb fat for about 10 minutes until they soften and start to brown at the edges.  This will start the sugars  caramelising and releasing some of their juices.  These juices will deglaze the pan and lift up all of those lamb flavours.

Stir in some fresh thyme stalks and cook for a couple more minutes.

Add the lamb back into the pot and add 300ml of red wine. One of my golden rules - never cook with something you wouldn't drink.  Two reasons - the quality of the wine will determine the end quality of your dish, and second - there will be wine left over for the cook to drink - so you want to make sure it's a good one!

Bring to the boil then clamp a lid on the pot an pop into an oven at 150C and forget about it for at least 3 hours, but it can be longer.

At the end of the cooking time, the lamb will be fall-apart tender - no worries if you don't have the best carving skills! The onions will have stewed down into a rich sweet sauce.  Stir in some freshly chopped parsley and thyme leaves to lift the rich sauce. I like to serve this with something to mop up the juices - mashed potato, cauliflower mash, or a favourite - roasted garlic and chickpea mash, and some green vegetables.